On the Road to Come What May
by KUCrow1997
Summary: Harry is thrown back in time after a mishap during the battle in the Department of Mysteries. Rated M for violence and language.
1. Department of Mysteries Demolished

A/N: I do not own the HP franchise. I understand that it's customary to begin stories this way, but there is a reason you're reading FAN fiction after all.

On the Road to Come What May

Ch 1

Department of Mysteries; Demolished

"Damn! Hermione! Seal that door off! Luna! You ok?" Harry shouted to his companions in haste. "Luna, look at me! Are you ok?"

The petite blonde girl had been banished into a desk and landed awkwardly. She was grimacing in pain and clutching at her chest, her breathing seemed a bit labored. He silvery grey eyes were also a bit unfocused, indicating a blow to the head. She did manage to give Harry a small grin though.

"I'm all right, I think." She then coughed a bit.

Harry was more than a little relieved. His grand plan to rescue his Godfather Sirius had turned into so much hippogriff dung soon after the six teens had arrived. Fortunately, nobody had died, yet.

"Harry! That seal won't hold for long. We need to move soon!" Hermione was pretty collected, but the strain in her voice was evident, and very understandable.

What was intended to be a quick grab Sirius and go had actually been an ambush. Rather than a handful of Voldemort's minions and a captured Sirius Black, the six teens had encountered eleven alerted Death Eaters; including Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix LeStrange. Harry considered himself very lucky that the practiced murderers had not managed to kill any of his friends so far.

The list of injured had mounted, however.

To his knowledge, only he and Hermione had so far escaped unscathed. Luna had been badly bruised (and possibly concussed) from being thrown into a desk. He was at present unaware of the locations of Ginny, Ron, and Neville; having been separated after the group had brought the Hall of Prophecies crashing down. When he had lost contact with the other three, he had noticed Ginny dragging an ankle; possibly broken. Neville was sporting a broken nose, but otherwise managing fairly well. Ron had managed to get himself tangled up in some sort of tentacle brains and was acting in an intoxicated and disoriented manner.

"_Stupid Ron! Why in the world did he think casting an 'accio brains' was a good idea?"_

"Harry! What are we going to do?" Hermione called to him again, breaking him from his momentary contemplation.

Wham! Something heavy had impacted the door from the outside. The Death Eaters were upon them. Unfortunately, their retreat through the Department of Mysteries had led them to a room with but a single entrance and exit (as well as separating them from the other three). The fact that the entire building was actually buried deep beneath London removed any sort of windows as a viable escape option as well. Their little group needed a plan if they were to avoid dying today.

Crash! The door shook heavily at the abuse.

"_Think Harry! What do we need to do?"_

His mind categorized their list of requirements.

Escape the dead end room they were in.

Locate the other half of their party

Escape this blasted Ministry building alive.

"_Okay. What do we have to work with here?"_

Wham! The door began to flex a bit with each blow.

He looked around the little room. He thought he might have recognized some of the hourglass shaped items in a cabinet on the wall, but he needed more info.

Wham! The door splintered a little.

"Hermione, where are we?"

"I think we're in a storage space just off of the 'Time' room."

He nodded to the hourglasses in the cabinet. "Are those what I think they are?"

Wham! The door shook heavily and splintered some more.

"Time Turners? I think so."

Wham! Crack! The door began to split along one of the panels near the jamb.

"Think we can use 'em?" Harry was trying to think.

"_Spin back ten minutes. Set up a little ambush for the ambushers?"_

Hermione took a look at the cabinet. She then shook her head negatively.

"No time Harry! They're partially disassembled! We'd need a good few minutes to get them working."

The door buckled a bit more with a loud crack. They had mere seconds, not a few minutes.

"_Well, only one thing to do."_

Harry may not have liked his choice, but he liked surrender even less.

"Hermione! Here's what I need you to do. Grab Luna and flatten up against the wall near the door. When I draw their fire, you two slip out."

Hermione looked horrified.

"No Harry! We have to get you out too!"

The door crunched loudly as a bit more of the wooden structure gave way. Their time was quickly running out.

He looked Hermione in her deep brown eyes. The terror was mixed with determination and desperation. He didn't want to leave her, but he _would_ save her. At the cost of his life, if need be.

"It's the only way, Hermione. It's me they're after. You need to find the others and get out of here."

The door took another hit and splintered heavily. One more impact would most likely rend it completely.

"Go!" He pushed the hesitant girl towards the appointed spot. She managed to grip Luna's shoulders tightly as they crouched in hiding.

"When you see an opening, run for it!" He shouted. She looked about to cry, but she nodded in response.

Harry looked over the shattered remains of the door and leveled his wand. For them to escape, he had to make this good. A surprise was most definitely in order.

"Reducto!" Harry fired a massively overpowered blasting hex at the shattered doorframe.

Ka-wham! The door, having previously been abused from without, was devastated by the blast from within. It exploded outward, peppering the Death Eaters with large splinters. The shouts and screams issuing from someone out side indicated at least one casualty among the terrorists.

"Accio Death Eater!" Harry summoned one of the Dark Wizards from their spot outside the room, and banished them hard into the wall next to him with a meaty crunch. The ugly man was stunned into unconsciousness.

"_Sell your life dearly, Harry. Those murdering scum need to buy this!"_

He ducked a killing curse and fired back with a piercing curse that winged a Death Eater.

"Arrgh!" The man screamed, but fired back.

"_Almost there! Have to lure them into the room a bit."_

He backed up almost into the open cabinet and ducked again as more curses spattered around him.

He fired a bludgeoning hex through the doorway and managed to knock out the splinter-punctured wizard. His two companions stepped through the door in a crouch, hemming him in.

"_Road's clear, go!" _ He nodded to Hermione and Luna. Hermione gave him a sad look, and scuttled through the doorway, hustling the stunned Luna in front of her.

Harry fired a slicing hex at the wizard to his left. The man had noticed Hermione's escape and had turned to investigate. The vicious slash he now sported along his right side seemed to quell his curiosity. Unfortunately, he was still in the fight.

"You guys are Voldie's best? You're losing to a schoolboy!" A little taunting might liven things up a bit in what were sure to be Harry's last moments.

"Shut your face Potter!" One of the masked terrorists said, firing a hex as he did so.

"Jeez, even your comebacks suck! Reducto!" Harry blasted the wall behind the wizard on his right, showering him in stone fragments.

This injures the man, but the effect was now both wizards were extremely angry.

"Reducto! Diffindo! Reducto! Confringo! Avada Kedavra!" Both men began raining curses down into Harry's general area. Their aim was off a bit, but they managed to blast the Time Turner cabinet into pieces. Harry was now being showered in glass shards and completely enveloped in some sort of strange dust.

"_Damn! Can't see! What is this stuff?"_

Harry could only duck and cough as whatever was contained within the hourglasses was wafted into a large cloud in his general area.

"Avada Kedavra!" The sliced wizard unleashed an overpowered killing curse into the cloud, his anger and the pain of his wound massively overcharging the normally powerful spell.

The green spell impacted the cloud, and a bright flash nearly blinded the Death Eaters, knocking them backwards.

Harry, while not hit by the killing curse, felt a strange tugging sensation similar to a portkey. It was unlike any portkey he had ever experienced though, as it seemed to hook him by the scruff of his neck and yank him backwards very briskly. He was briefly reminded of a Vernon Dursley collar-grab, before he was overcome by darkness. Harry's fight was over. For now, at least.

A/N: Sorry for the cliffie, but it seemed a good stopping point


	2. Out of the Dark

A/N: I do not own the Harry Potter franchise. 'Nuff said.

On the Road to Come What May

Ch 2

Out of the Dark

It was very dark when Harry woke up. And very quiet.

The darkness and silence were welcome to the recovering boy, as his 'experience' had left him with a pounding headache. The complete darkness and silence did not aid him in the task of finding out just what the hell had happened, however.

_"I don't think I'm dead; I hurt way too much."_

He felt the ground around him and noticed a big difference. When he was incapacitated, he was knocked to a smooth tile floor in the ministry. Now, he was laid out on a rough stone surface.

_"Death Eater cell? Merlin, I hope not!"_

He was immensely relieved to feel his wand a few feet away. This militated against him being a prisoner, as not even the most incompetent Voldie boot licker would forget to disarm him!

A quick 'lumos' spell showed him that the wand still worked. It also showed the rough hewn walls of a cave around him.

_"Where in the world am I?"_

He was pretty sure there were no rooms quite like this one anywhere in the Ministry. A quick call of "Lights", and a complete lack of anything happening; confirmed that he wasn't in a building at all.

He grabbed a rock, canceled the light spell, and blind-transfigured a lantern. One conjured bluebell flame later, and the light situation was solved.

He picked up his new lantern and explored his little cave. It proved to be a space (or 'room' in spelunking parlance) about thirty feet by twenty feet, with a ceiling fifteen feet high. Fortunately, there was a corridor leading away on the other side of the room. With nothing in the space except some loose rubble, Harry decided to follow the passageway.

He cast a 'tempus' spell. It showed the time to be quarter to eleven in the morning. He had been out for about ten hours! He needed to get moving and find out what happened to his friends.

He prepared for a long walk.

* * *

Harry tromped through the darkened passageways for what seemed like hours. He found a few other empty rooms and some assorted junk; empty bottles, broken pickaxes, wooden baulks and the like. He found nothing helpful or informative except for things that told him he was somehow located in the middle of an apparently abandoned excavation.

At least, he was somehow in a 'wizarding' tunnel, if that made any sense. One of the empty bottles he had found had information for a firewhiskey distillery inscribed on its side.

_"Okay, I'm not at the bottom of a muggle mine shaft."_

The 'presence' of magic in the tunnel pointed to one of two possibilities. Either the goblins had dug this, or a wizard mining concern of some kind.

Goblins were far more likely, as they had nearly cornered the minerals market in the magical world.

The only odd thing was he hadn't found any equipment used expressly for mining. No mine cars, sluices, assayer's tools; not a thing used for minerals extraction.

He also used his limited knowledge of geology to discover that there was nothing down there. The passageways had varied between earth and timber supports to areas of hewn rock. There seemed to be no account made of the various strata the tunnels crossed, nor signs of exploration for ores. Naturally the lack of minerals may be the reason for abandonment; whatever mine someone had been digging having been 'played out'.

But there was something else bothering him.

During a paper for his Charms class, he took the opportunity to read up on the origin of the 'reducto' spell; which happened to be magical mining. Most mine shafts, magical or muggle; tend to follow seams of ore. Usually those seams would run off in odd directions, as would the resulting passageways.

The passageways he had been following for the past two hours were very straight and level.

A quick 'laser' spell (just a concentrated beam of light, really. Muggleborns likened it to a laser), showed the passage he was in ran for hundreds of meters in a straight line.

He stopped to think for a moment. Why is this here?

_"Why would someone dig a great bloody hole in the ground?"_

Hermione's voice popped into his head for a moment.

_"Tunnels are typically constructed for the purposes of transportation, sanitation, mining, military purposes, or underground construction."_

Harry spoke aloud.

"Right. I know this is a 'magical' tunnel. I know it's not used for mining, probably. Magicals don't dig tunnels for transportation or sanitation. I don't see any dead bodies or weapons lying around; so military is out. That leaves underground construction."

Suddenly, it hit him. Wasn't he just in a vast underground complex with five of his friends having a nice little battle not too long ago?

"But I've never heard of an 'unfinished' part of the Ministry. Antiseptic and strangely Orwellian, sure; but not just bare rock!"

His feet hurt, he was tired, he was hungry, and he was just as confused as when he arrived here. Wherever 'here' was.

Harry grabbed a broken shovel handle of about three and a half feet. He cast a cushioning charm and a few flight charms he knew on it, and viola; one broken down 'Nimbus Zero Thousand'.

He shrugged, mounted the contraption, and sped off at a daring three feet off the ground.

_"At least I don't have far to fall if it fails!"_

* * *

About fifteen minutes later, Harry thought he might have heard something in the distance ahead. Excitedly, he spurred his ersatz mount onward until he could see a tiny pinpoint of light ahead. Stopping to listen for a moment, he could make out the sounds of digging.

_ "Finally! Another form of life. Thought I was alone in the world."_

He sped onward. The makeshift 'broom' was managing a pace similar to that of a person jogging briskly. Gradually the light increased until he could make out some details of the room ahead. Whatever it was, it was big.

When he reached the corridor entrance, he blinked a few times at the 'brightness'. When the glare cleared a bit, he noticed the cavernous space before him; several stories high and large enough to contain a handful of quiddich pitches. In this large space, there appeared to be several work gangs composed of humans and goblins, being directed by some goblin 'foremen'. The work gangs seemed to be involved in either digging or removing spoil from the excavation. The foremen seemed happy enough, but the workers were obviously not pleased to be there.

_"Prisoners, probably. Didn't know Gringotts had any penal gangs working."_

One of the foremen noticed his presence and shouted to him.

"You there! What do you think you're doing?"

Harry could only gape and give his best 'who, me?' expression.

"Get back to work scum! Can't work off your sentence just standing around!"

And Harry now knew what his next task would be: talking his way out of a Goblin prison.

He could only sigh.

* * *

Two hours and several brassed off goblin supervisors later, and Harry was being escorted to the exit by a security guard. After some rude questioning of the 'how the hell did you get here?' variety (he claimed an 'apparition accident'), a thorough check of the prisoner manifest (nope, no Harry Potters here), and some unsubtle threats to 'never show himself around these parts again unless you want to stay for awhile', Harry was only steps away from freedom.

_"Just have to get myself back to Hogwarts and find out just what the hell happened."_

The guard spoke.

"This exit lets you out in Muggle London; is that a problem for you?"

"No sir, I was muggle raised. I should be able to find my way from here."

"Fine then, just through that gate there. See that you don't return."

Harry nodded and walked up to the gate. He stopped and took off his robes. He would look much less out of place appearing in the middle of London at mid day dressed in a school uniform. Placing the balled up robes under his arm, he took a breath and pushed through the gate.

Harry expelled that breath rapidly in surprise when he took in the scene in front of him.

He was not expecting horses and carriages. Nor the period dress of the inhabitants.

_"Is that man wearing a tricorne hat and breeches?"_

A middle aged woman walked by in a voluminous dress and carrying a basket of some kind.

_"So the question goes from 'where' to 'when' am I?"_

Sometimes Harry hated magic. These sorts of complications never happened in the mundane world!

The street was unpaved and muddy; and the buildings appeared to be a bit run down. The area gave off the impression of a bad neighborhood.

Harry walked along the muddy pike for a bit until he came across some sort of coffee shop or pub. The faded sign board proclaimed it to be the "The Spread Eagle".

Peering in the windows, he saw a 'newspaper' of a single sheet face up on a nearby table. He could just make out a date on the smeared broadsheet.

Part of him was wishing he hadn't.

June Twentieth in the Year of our Lord 1808. God save the King.

"Oh Merlin!"


End file.
